Thursday, September 13, 2012

Dear friends, do not believe every
spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God... -
1 John 4:1a

I do not think of myself as being
particularly nationalistic. Though I love my city, my region and my
fellow US citizens, I am suspicious of national pride. I do want the
nation in which I reside to be a model of justice and generosity for
the international community, and I can feel proud of the United
States when it demonstrates compassion, ingenuity and ideals worthy
of emulation. And it often does.

This kind of national pride seems
healthy to me. It is appropriate to appreciate the positive traits of
myself, my family and my wider communities, and I can appreciate the
many things that make America a good place to live. Self-esteem, in
right measure, is a good thing.

But there is a kind of pride that goes
beyond healthy self-esteem. There is pride that discounts the value
of others, that lifts itself up by tearing others down. This is the
kind of pride
that goes before a fall. On the individual level, it can lead to selfish behavior that ignores the needs and
concerns of others. On the international level, such pride can cost
millions of lives - through war, famine, preventable disease and
suppression of human rights.

Projected onto the world stage,
this pride often passes as "patriotism." Under the banner
of loving our country, we are encouraged to project all fear and
darkness outwards. The unknown "other" becomes the focus of
all of our hidden shame and anxiety. We begin to see ourselves as
innocent and heroic victims, assailed without cause by people and
nations that hate our way of life. In the United States, this form of
fear-drenched pride was especially prevalent in the years following
the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Our
government called us into a righteous "crusade" against an
externalized evil.

I would like to believe that I am
immune to such appeals. I was raised in a family with a very
developed critique of patriotism and Empire. From an early age, I
have been inoculated against the seductive battle cries and lies
that politicians habitually tell when a nation is gearing up for war.
Yet, despite my deep resistance to patriotic feeling, I must confess
that the attacks on the United States' embassies in North Africa and
the Arabian Peninsula have shaken me.

I was deeply affected by the news that
the US ambassador to Libya was murdered, and I recognized a strange
feeling emerging from somewhere deep inside. To my surprise, I
identified this feeling as the exact sort of patriotism that I have resisted for so long.

I think about what this patriotic
sensation feels like in my body. I experience a constriction in my
chest, a gut-level shock that someone would strike me
in Libya. Yes, me. Despite all my training, it feels like a
personal attack. The ambassador was not just an individual. He
represented me, my family, and all Americans. To strike him was to
strike all of us. Somehow the fact that the killing took place within
the embassy makes it even worse. In some strange way, I feel as if my
home has been broken into.

In addition to these feelings of
violation, I experience positive feelings, too. I feel drawn deep
into the community of American citizens. Somehow, we are all made one
in this event. Despite the terrible sensation of collective
violation, I feel another emotion, even more surprising: Euphoria.
This attack makes me feel strong, because it bonds me with 300
million others who are the object of this crime. Ironically, those
who wanted to tear America down by murdering its representative in
Libya have strengthened my own sense of being an American.

Shortly after learning of the death of
the American ambassador in Benghazi, I began to see photos from the
streets of Libya's capital, expressing the sorrow of ordinary
Libyans. It was a good reminder for
me that the attacks of a small group of extremists does not
necessarily represent the feelings of the people of Libya as a whole.
In the context of the intense
emotions I am feeling, these apologies extended by ordinary Libyans
mean a lot.

What am I experiencing when I am drawn
into this kind of collective mourning and euphoria? While I have
rarely experienced these feelings as part of a nation-state, I have
felt them regularly in religious life. Paul talks about how when
we are animated by the Spirit of Christ, we are drawn into one body.
Outside of the community of faith, I have also experienced this
sensation in mass social movements, particularly during the early
months of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy DC.

In moments like these - whether in the
context of the Church, broad social movements or the nation-state -
it is clear that human beings are made for connection. We are built
to be integrated into a whole that is greater than our individual
selves. In the Christian understanding, this integration takes place
on the "spiritual" plane. When groups of individuals are
united together, there is "spirit" involved. For the
Church, the spirit that unites us is the Holy Spirit of Jesus. But it
stands to reason that there are other spirits that draw people
together.

Here are some questions that I am chewing on: What is the spirit that animates
nationalism? What kind of spirit am I being drawn into when I feel
shared pain and solidarity with all Americans? What is at work when I
sense that an injury to one is an injury to all? How can I remain
aware of what spirit I am being caught up in at any given moment -
and how can I avoid being seduced by spirits that lead to
factionalism, hatred and violence?

3 comments:

Aside from the sign holders there in the streets, a great number of Libyans also stepped in that very night and risked their lives to try and protect that embassy. That their efforts were in vain pains them very much. That seems to have been left out of much of the media circus, too. We are left instead with this image of unaided, defenseless and unarmed ambassadors unilaterally attacked by a mob. Their own both attacked them and tried to protect them.

As much as that mob hated us, there was another that equally loved us.